


Muldumarec

by water_bby



Category: Yonec - Marie de France
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-22
Updated: 2010-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-13 23:30:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/water_bby/pseuds/water_bby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I see the falcon, and the passage through the hill, and your tomb. That's all I know, for now."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Muldumarec

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sister_coyote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_coyote/gifts).



When Muldumarec was a boy, he never thought about the gifts. He simply enjoyed being any thing, any one, he wanted to, and his sister knew if something important would happen before they left the nursery each day. But before he reached the age to be knighted, his sister took the veil and moved from the silver castle to a distant abbey. So when he was knighted, he had flown to see her, riding the wind as a falcon. She had paused mid-step when he flew in her window, swallowed hard, and then tears poured down her cheeks as she moved forward to welcome him.

"Oh, brother," she wept, embracing him fiercely. "That falcon will be your end!"

"How, pray tell, sister?"

But she had simply shaken her head, tears still welling in her eyes. "I don't know, brother Muldumarec. I see the falcon, and the passage through the hill, and your tomb. That's all I know, for now."

"I could simply never fly through the passage, silly one. I'll run on all fours if I ever go that way." He knew, even as he said it, that he could not make such a promise. He would be king; if his people required it, he would become the falcon and fly through the hill. But it was unsettling, to see his sister mourn his death while they were both so young.

"Never mind, my dear one. What will be will be."

She smiled up at him and demanded to be told all about his knighting and the tournament that celebrated it, and as the years passed, Muldumarec almost forgot that day. He was now king, and he usually saw his sister in only in her official position as Seer and King's Councilor, so they had little time for personal conversations. He did remember her warning about the falcon flying through the hill, though, so he ran the passage on four legs when he visited the land beyond.

One day, as he padded by a lake in the form of a leopard, he saw a young woman playing with her companions. Struck by her beauty and gentleness, he watched for the time it took the sun to descend from its zenith to its nightly rest, and then he followed her and her companions as they returned home. And so passed many hours on many days, Muldumarec trying out a number of forms so that he could be near the lady.

When he next saw his sister, her nails bit into his hand as her milky gaze ignored him for many minutes. She rarely slipped so far from the world when Seeing, so he waited for her to return to him. Between one moment and the next, her focus snapped from the future back to him. And the sadness that he had nearly forgotten was back.

"Oh, brother, it has started, has it not? She is very beautiful. It is a shame that she is to marry so old and wicked a man."

"Marry?"

"Soon, I believe, perhaps even tomorrow. It's not important."

"Not important? How could it be not important? She's...."

"I know, brother, I know." Sadness, yes, and affection, and empathy. "It will be hard for you. You cannot approach her until she gives you permission to do so. No, until she demands you do so! And it will be long and long before that happens, but once it does, it will be far too short a time before the jealous one she calls husband will lead you both to your deaths."

He shook his head. "No!" This could not be so, he thought. "How could something so beautiful and gentle lead to this talk of death?"

"Remember, my liege, that I am Seer. I don't tell these tales lightly or for my own amusement. Come see me when you are ready to hear what I have seen." And she turned and left him standing in his chamber.

He told himself that he would stay away from the other land and the beautiful young lady, but a mere two days later, he found himself once again looking for her by the lake. He found her companions, but not the one he wished to see. He crept as close as he dared, hoping to hear them speak of his lady. And they did, but what they said frightened him. She had been married to an old man, just as his sister had said, and the old man had taken her to his house and would not allow any one to visit, not her friends, not even her mother or her father. They whispered that the servants said that he had put her in a chamber at the top of a tower, with only his widowed sister as a companion. Never, they said, would they see her again on their afternoons by the lake.

Muldumarec fled back through the hill, racing to his sister. "Sister, Seer, it has come to pass. She is married and he has hidden her away where I can no longer see her. Tell me the rest, I beg you."

"Oh, my brother, you can see her. You simply have to fly."

"But..."

"Muldumarec, brother and king, answer me. Would you prefer to die or for your lady to live for years upon years locked away from the world?"

"You already know my answer. It is unthinkable that she should be so trapped all her life!"

"Then trust me on this. She will not be so trapped. And, yes, the price you will pay is your life, but the one who slays you will in turn be slain by your sword in the hand of your heir."

"Sister...."

"But this won't happen tomorrow, my brother, so let us not speak of this again until you have reached an understanding with your lady."

And so they agreed to remain quiet on the subject. After seven years, during which Muldumarec would occasionally stop at the foot of the tower just for a rare glimpse of the lady, grieved as her brightness dulled with the lack of joy, one day he suddenly knew that the magic that had kept him from her was gone, and he took wing, flying through the hill to the window of the tower that only his falcon-form could enter.


End file.
